


The Last Twist of the Knife

by Sculpts



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drunk John, Drunk Sherlock, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, John idly wanders through his own thoughts which are blessedly lubricated with booze, M/M, POV John Watson, Stream of Consciousness, The Stag Night, sort of???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1763591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sculpts/pseuds/Sculpts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not the end of the world. It’s not even the end of the night. That somehow doesn’t help him feel any less like the dark might reach out and render them closed like all their old cases.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Twist of the Knife

**Author's Note:**

> " _Every street lamp that I pass_  
>  _Beats like a fatalistic drum,_  
>  _And through the spaces of the dark_  
>  _Midnight shakes the memory_  
>  _As a madman shakes a dead geranium._ "  
> \-- T. S. Eliot; Rhapsody on a Windy Night

Dragging Sherlock out of that last bar had been a hoot. A hoot John had probably deserved given that he’d spiked his drink a couple of times, but maybe if Sherlock hadn’t brought measuring cylinders to a stag do he wouldn’t have had to resort to those kinds of desperate measures in the first place. Besides, the barman hadn’t questioned it. John could’ve been anyone, Sherlock could’ve been anyone, but the barman didn’t see a single thing wrong with John slipping a sneaky extra shot two into his beer so, hey, public endorsement. Call it peer pressure if you want something to blame. The point - the _point_ is--

The point is they’re out here now, finally, in the cold air of a predictably chill London evening and he’s merrily pissed and that’s nice. And Sherlock’s pissed too and that’s great. They’re both pissed and Sherlock’s still grumbling about ash and listing off what John can only assume are various different varieties because he’s fairly certain he doesn’t know most of those words or at least understand how they’re supposed to string together in a sentence (but then again there’s the drunk bit to consider, whether that’s screwing up Sherlock’s mouth or his ears more is any sober man’s guess and not his to worry about right now.) No, here we go. The  _real_ point is that t hey’ve been to… six? Seven bars? More? Christ, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t actually know where they’re going, either, so that’s an issue.

Sherlock, when he zeros in on him again, has quietened down now. He’s traipsing along the street with his hands in his pockets and he's wobbling all over the place, yeah, absolutely, but he's looking all the same a lot like Sherlock Holmes and a lot _not_ like Sherlock Holmes, too, a lot just like Sherlock, and John does his best to keep step. It’s easy, really. It’s easy. Streetlamps cast their orange floods on chewing gummed paving and John marches unsteadily on Sherlock’s heels. It’s a game. Like _don’t step on the cracks_ , one of those things you do without actually knowing what happens if you don’t because it’s enough to know that you don’t want to find out. Instead of the cracks, the game for tonight is the gap between his feet and Sherlock’s. He can’t fall more than two strides behind: there's no why, it’s just the rules. Don’t ask him. He didn’t write them.

In every patch of dark between the little pools, he feels a bit closer to the end of the world. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not even the end of the night. That somehow doesn’t help him feel any less like the dark might reach out and render them closed like all their old cases, so he sticks close, close enough that nothing could snatch them apart if it _tried_.

  
  
  


They’ve been walking for what feels like ages. It takes him what feels like ages longer to realise that’s because it probably _has_ been ages, because he recognises this street and it’s fairly close to home. Looks like Sherlock hadn’t known where they were headed, either. His feet just carried him, and he followed them, and John followed him. Sounds about right. Fits the pattern. Business as perfect. Usual? Usual. Business as usual.

Maybe tonight. Maybe. Most guys gets a strippers on their stag night, right? So what harm is it for him to talk to his best friend? Maybe. _Maybe_. Just talking to him, telling him things he ought to know, listening if he talks back-- just actually talking. Actually, really talking with the one person he’s ever to trusted to keep him safe. His secrets. All the messy stuff that goes on in his head that isn’t normal either but looks normal when you stack it up next to Sherlock Holmes. All the stuff that Sherlock knows, _knows_ because he read it all that first day but John's never asked for it back and John’s never told anyone else, either, never let anyone else _near_ (if Mary knew, if she knew all of everything, if she knew it all as it is rather than the way he spins it maybe she wouldn’t, maybe she   _wouldn't_ \-- _(of course she wouldn't, who would?)_ ). Maybe he’ll talk to him today. Maybe that’s what he’ll do. Maybe that’s what’ll happen before he drags himself up to bed and Sherlock drags himself down the hall and they both pass out in readiness for the inevitable hangover of a lifetime and neither of them mentions that it's the first and last time John'll use his room in the recent past and foreseeable future. Maybe he’ll talk to Sherlock. Maybe he’ll tell him thanks.

Maybe he’ll say that he’s a miracle. Maybe he’ll say that he doesn’t know how overwhelming it was the first time John woke up, comfortable, in an armchair, in the same room as another human being and without the instinct to gun him down. Maybe he’ll explain what it meant to him to sleep again, really sleep, instead of passing out from exhaustion after a long day of doing absolutely nothing but taking a walk and staring at his desk drawer like it held all the answers to life (which it did, back then, when the only answer all the sums kept adding up to had his trigger finger twitching and his head chewing over the sound of gunfire like white noise). Maybe he'll say _cheers_ for not inviting anyone else along this evening. Maybe he’ll tell him he’s never believed in destiny. Maybe he’ll let him know he still doesn’t, really, but that he at least understands the argument for it now.

 

 

Sherlock’s head turns over his shoulder and his whole body almost goes to go with it but he manages to set it back on the right course and then he’s looking at John and John’s looking back and they’ve both stopped, somehow, though he doesn’t remember exactly when walking became not walking. Sherlock’s not looking at him like they’ve just finished a case, and that’s a relief (he doesn’t want the case to be over, not now, not ever.) But he’s not looking at him like anything easy, either. He’s looking him, and John’s looking back, and for a moment they’re both just looking. And maybe if either of them were a little bit less alcohol and a little bit more sense, they might be able to work out what they mean. As it is, John has only the furthest inkling of a clue. Settled beside it is the inkling that this inkling is closer to any inkling he’ll ever have sober.

That’s another thing people don’t seem to know about John. Something _Sherlock_ doesn’t seem to know about John, which actually matters more than the first bit and is a lot more surprising. Maybe if they talk, tonight, just tonight while John still knows, John’ll tell Sherlock he’s a coward. That’ll shock him, won’t it? That’ll take him by surprise. John Watson, the coward.

About bloody time _John_ takes _Sherlock_ by surprise.

 

  
  
Out of nowhere, Sherlock grins, and where does he get off doing that? Right when John’s in the middle of figuring out their big mystery? Right when he’s finally got an inkling? But it’s alright, because would you look at that? John’s grinning too. He can’t help it. Never could help it. Hopefully never will.

“C’mon.” Hah. Sherlock’s slurring. Gangly drunken lug. “Less’go home.”

  
  
  
... Alright. Yeah, okay. Okay.

 

Let’s go home.

**Author's Note:**

> I literally just sat and typed this out as a feelings dump without really taking too much time to check it over and I don't have a clue how to write drunk people's thought processes and it's 4am and all the signs point to me regretting this in the morning but it satisfied my need to rid myself of the intense emotions I have been experiencing for these foolish boys so


End file.
